


One For the Little Boy Who Lives Down the Lane

by galisted



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Bowling alley, The Enterprise has a Bowling Alley
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:28:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26740657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galisted/pseuds/galisted
Summary: The Enterprise has always had a bowling alley.It's about time for it to rise to a starring role!
Relationships: Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Montgomery "Scotty" Scott





	1. Discovery

The USS Enterprise finally emerged from the nebula on the far side of the Federation, near the borders of the Romulan Neutral Zone. Finally was perhaps not the correct phrasing, they had been scheduled to spend two weeks mapping the nebula, but that was before they had attempted to scan anything from within the nebula, which seemed to have upset the nebula itself. The effects were rapid and disastrous.

🎳

**Stardate: 4987.6 15:43 Hours**

Cmdr. Spock turned and looked up from his scanner, “Particulate levels indicate that we have successfully exited the nebula, Captain.”

“And a gud zing too Keptin, warp engines hev stopped responding.”

“Sir, we’re getting damage reports from all over the ship,” Lieutenant Uhura’s face suddenly pulled taut, “Oh, no. - That last wave completely knocked out the gravity plating in decks 19 through 22.”

A button was pressed on the armrest of the captain’s chair. “Mr. Scott, once you have things stabilized, I’d appreciate an estimate for how long all these repairs are going to last.”

After a few moments of silence Captain Kirk spun around in his chair. “Engineering, come in.” 

“Lieutenant, are we having any problems with the comms?”

“No sir, communications are one of the only systems fully intact.”

“Then why isn’t anyone answering,” he asked, striding back to examine the communications station.

Lt. Sulu looked back over his shoulder, “Wait, did you say that the grav plating went out on deck 21, Uhura?” All the junior officers on the bridge turned to watch Uhura’s solemn nod.

The ship’s first officer quickly appeared behind the unfortunate helmsman, “Mister Sulu, what exactly is the significance of the malfunction on that deck?”

𝇜

**Stardate: 4988.4**

It had taken two hours to recover the 173 crew members that had been attending or participating in the Engineering vs. Medical bowling tournament. Mr. Spock was already working on a proposal to the admiralty to decommission the regulation six-lane bowling alley from Federation starships. A higher priority, of course, was to determine appropriate consequences for the 17 members of his staff that had left their posts to attend the tournament.

Unfortunately, these, and almost all of his other regular duties, had been superseded by the extensive repairs to be done. Under normal circumstances the Enterprise had an entirely reasonable number of engineers on hand to repair whatever malfunctions might occur. The only members of the entire engineering department who were still physically capable of making repairs were a trio of warp specialists who had been monitoring the intermix chamber, and given the state of the warp engines, they were going to be staying there for quite some time yet.

Certainly it was vastly preferable for the warp drive to have broken after their retreat from the nebula, rather than before, but it was taking an unfortunate amount of time to isolate the cause of the malfunction, and no matter how many other repairs needed to be made, it was undeniable that the engines were the first priority. For what was most assuredly not the first time during his assignment aboard the Enterprise, Spock found himself regretting his decision to not study warp engineering while at the Academy.

For now the only logical course of action was to continue repairing the shields and weapon systems, after which he would move on to less critical subsystems.


	2. By Any Other Name

🎳

**Stardate: 4987.6 15:17 Hours**

The past 3 weeks of practice were finally paying off for the chosen representatives of the Enterprise’s Medical and Engineering departments. All six lanes were in use to help prevent the tournament keeping participants and spectators away from their duties for too long (or as was generally understood, but never spoken, to keep the captain and first officer from hearing about the tournament and cancelling it).

Dr. McCoy and Commander Scott had quickly established themselves as commentators for the afternoon’s event, having both been soundly rejected by their departments for their truly shocking lack of skill. The two of them had settled themselves at a small table in the center of the balcony directly over the pin decks. At four frames, - and at least that many drinks, - into the first round, neither man had yet acknowledged that a location where the pins would be visible might be better for the task.

Almost half of the ship’s crew could be seen somewhere in the bowling alley. Clusters of people were gathered in the seating behind the bowlers, there were near constant streams of people passing along the sides of the lanes, making their way up and down the stairs to the balcony, and of course, plenty of people were gathered around the tables up on the balcony.

“Weeell Scotty, my boys in blue down in the stripe on the left jus’ finished a perfect Angry Herman.” Scott snorted into his scotch and started coughing, but the doctor pushed on, “They got so many more numbers in their score than any a’ yur wrench monkeys.”

After a certain amount of spluttering, Scotty had recovered enough to respond, “Aye, that they do doctor, an’ ah’d be a fool not to admit it. My teams do have a lot more a’ them crossed out boxes.” A wave of crashes echo across the room from the afternoon’s event. “Are ye sure it was a grumpy merman that ye saw though? It looked a fair bit more like a torn-faced boakin baw-heid tae me.”

Dr. Leonard McCoy was no fool, and was fairly certain that was no more a real bowling term than whatever he had said moments before. Another drop or two of mental lubrication left him almost absolutely sure that it was some sort of insult, and left another empty glass on the cluttered table in front of him.

🎳

**Stardate 4988.4**

They refused to make eye contact.

Both had tried to take full responsibility for the disaster.

“Tried” being the operative word. The captain had made it quite clear to them that absolutely everyone who had been present at the tournament was being held equally responsible for their role in the disaster. Consequences begin as an official reprimand in everybody’s file for the incident, and may become more serious once the damage of the accident has been fully assessed. 

The two injured senior officers both furiously glared at the cream colored ceiling of the Enterprise’s sickbay.


End file.
